Can we go out to dinner instead of just having sex, I ask Keith.  He says that would be okay but when the day of our date rolls around, he says he has a headache and cancels.  I wonder if it's because he doesn't want to take me to dinner, or if he has another date, but I don't say anything.  I really want to see you, I say on the phone a few days later and I feel like I am begging for it, but we can't meet at my house because Stevie is there and we can't meet at his house because his daughter will be home. We could get an airbnb, I say, but he says that will be weird and I explain that I can make it so it won't be weird but it will cost us $100 and I suggest we split the cost, and point out that it would cost less for each of us than dinner and a movie and he says maybe and then he finds out that his daughter will be working late the following week and we make plans for me to leave work early and go to his house.  But that afternoon he cancels, saying that his daughter came home from work early because she's sick.  I still want to see you, I say, can we go out to eat or see a movie? He suggests that we get a room at a red roof in or go see a movie at a theater that has reclining seats and a dark parking lot.  I'm hurt that he doesn't want just to go for dinner or to a regular theater and I worry about what he'll expect me to do in the reclining seats or the dark parking lot, so I reject his plan.  Call me a snob but I don't do red roof inns, I tell him, and the movie theater is too far away, and maybe I'll just make other plans.  I am thinking of Ben.  I could go spend the evening with Ben and it would be lovely. During this whole exchange he sounds angry so I ask several times if he is angry but he says no.  Then he says he's had a terrible day because it's the anniversary of the day his daughter was killed.  Which makes me think, maybe I should just go up there and go out to dinner with him out of kindness, to see if I can make him feel better, so I do.  But I also wonder if it isn't just a story he's telling me to get me to come up there.  When I get there, he answers the door wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.  He invites me into the house. I hesitate because his daughter is there but he says it will be okay so I go in and see that the door to her room is shut.  Keith kisses me and tells me I look super hot and I kiss back and then he goes and puts on a shirt. While he is gone I study the photos on his mantelpiece.  On the right side is a recent photo of two young women which I recognize and on the other side is an old school portrait of a skinny girl with straight hair and a big smile.  There aren't any more recent pictures of this girl and I think that must be the one who died and now I feel like maybe the story is true.  Keith comes back into the living room and I pull him into the kitchen and we kiss some more and he puts his hand under my skirt and touches me and then he pulls out his fingers and shove them roughly into my mouth.  I reach up and pull out his hand and kiss him again and I can feel his erection through his shorts it's clear that he doesn't have any underwear on.  I go down on him but just for a minute   or two and then I stand up and say, let's go to dinner.  He smiles and kisses me and then he goes to put on underwear to contain his erection and he kisses me again and we leave.  I want to go an Indian or Pho place, both of which are half a mile from his house and well reviewed, but he keeps suggesting sushi so finally I say yes to the sushi and we get into his truck and he drives us there.  On the way there he tells me how bad the anniversary of his daughter's death is and I want to tell him about my mother, who died nearly 40 years ago, but I don't because  a mother's death can't compare to the death of a daughter.  Is that her picture on the mantelpiece, I ask, and he says yes.  It makes me feel so sad that I almost start crying. Keith says the daughter who is living with him marks the day every year by buying the dead daughter's favorite meal, which is fried chicken and macaroni and cheese.  The conversation ends when we arrive at the parking lot of the restaurant.  When we walk in, he says let's sit at the bar so we do even though there are plenty of tables free. So we sit at the bar and he orders a beer and I order a glass of wine, then we order dinner.  While waiting for dinner he asks the bartender to change the channels on both of the tvs so that both are playing baseball games and then he pulls out his phone and places a bet on some of the day's games and he orders a second beer.  It begins to dawn on me that this man may have a gambling problem as well as a drinking problem.  As we eat, we talk a little and we touch a little and every time the subject of our plans for the evening comes up, he gets hostile so I try to change the subject and that works but then somehow the subject comes up again. Once I ask him how old he was when he first got laid and he says 10.  Seriously, I ask, and I tell him that I don't know if he's lying because of the fibs he's told me before.  I tell him that at that age, it's not getting laid, it's something else.  Then I ask him who it was with, expecting a cute story like Ben's.  Keith says it was with his aunt.  That stuns me and I don't know what to say except that I say again that he must be joking but he doesn't say that he is.  Later I say, you know what we are having, it's a power struggle, only Keith thinks this is bullshit. No, it's true, and I give him the example of the sexual history discussing. I am trying to soften the ground for a plea for him to let me win this one but we don't go there because he starts accusing me of making the whole evening into a power struggle. He acts as if my goal is to emasculate him.  When the bartender asks us Keith wants another beer and he says yes, this will be his third and that's when I notice how extremely large the glasses are and I look away. What are you thinking, he asks, and I tell him that when I asked him out to dinner, I was trying to figure out what we are to each other.  Is it just a sex thing or is it more, I say, I'm okay with it just being a sex thing but I want to know.  Women always do that, he says.  Yes, and I am a woman, I reply, all woman, I never claimed to be anything else.  What do you want to do after this, he asks.  Honestly, I answer, I want to go home and see Stevie, because we'd spent so long figuring out what to do that we'd gotten a late start to our date and it was well past the time I'd told Stevie I'd be home.  At least let me finish my beer, he said, and he starts to gulp it down.  Of course, take your time, I tell him, worried about his ability to drive.  Then I go to the bathroom and when I come back, he starts saying all sorts of mean things to me because I want to go home instead of getting a room.  All of that hostility that had been barely suppressed, well it hadn't really been suppressed but now it starts flowing out of him.  Mostly it centers around the power struggle and the fact that I don't want to have sex with him.  I have this complicated theory about power struggles and I try to tell it to him, but it starts, when a man opens a door for a woman, who is in power, but I don't get any further because he starts ranting again about how important it was to me that I have my way.  As we walk out of the restaurant he walks ahead of me and I watch his legs, trying to gauge how drunk he is.  His limbs are a little loose as if he doesn't have complete control over them but before I decide what to do about that he open the door with an exaggerated flourish and he holds it open for me saying there, how's that, I opened the door for you, and I say, it's not about that, that's just an example. Then what is it about he says as we get into his truck and I realize that my whole theory sounds stupid so I just say it's complicated and I can't explain it right now.  He backs the truck up and that's when I ask him to stop and I get out of the truck, saying I am not comfortable with you driving and I'm just going to take an Uber out of the car.  I walk behind the truck and he looks at me out the side window and says, you fucking bitch, and he adds that he could have had sex with someone else this evening, and then he drives away, and there I stand in the parking lot, stunned and wondering what just happened.

I tell the Uber driver that there may be an angry man waiting for me at my car and that he shouldn't drive away until I'm safely in the car but his English is not very good and it's clear he doesn't understand me.  Fortunately, Keith is nowhere to be seen when we get to his house so I quickly get into my car and drive home.

The next morning Keith texts me that he's sorry and I answer that it's too late and then he tells me that I should fix my control problem or find a passive man and I think of Ben who is generous and giving but not the slightest bit passive.  You have no idea who I am or what I need, I think, and I write back asking him to get tested for STDs and send me the results but I know it will never happen.  Instead he tells me again that I looked super hot last night.